[Carannillion]

The thing about having a child start a book just to find out that he/she doesn't like it and then put it down, never to pick it up again is a bit pessimistic, I think. If the parent considers his/her child ready for LotR, then give it a shot. If the child doesn't like it, throw a lot of other good books at it. Later on, when your kid is more mature, he/she will probably be 'grown-up' enough to try the book once more (and hopefully like it this time.

I learned how to read at about 4. This made the library at school a bit thin the first three years (already read most of the books), and I was 'allowed' to use the library for the older kids. A lot of these books never really made any sense to me (especially the scientific ones), but later on, at about 10-12, I took them up again. Devoured them all, but I still didn't have that complete understanding of plot, message, characterization and stuff like that. School from the age of 13 (at least that's how it is in Norway) focus more and more on understanding the contents, and analyzing the text. This is quite healthy, I think, and in most cases, analyzing a book and writing a paper on it (simply writing it for yourself, not for any hand-ins at school) can be very fun.